Beer: Reviews & Ratings

Pour is transparent gold with a white head. Nose has a good bit of cheesy funk, gets sharp. Faint peach, strong brett and some stingy brett. Taste has a good bit of cheesy funk up front. Peach is light, brett is stingy, a touch acetic. Fuller body, well carbonated, creamy feel. (283 characters)

High carbonation, and watery. It took the mouthfeel down a few notches. Has an apricot/strawberry fruity nose and an acidic, oaky taste. Not very complex or lingering flavors. Just too watery though. (199 characters)

pours a light golden color, nice head. smell of lacto... taste of slight bourbony vanilla, lacto..finish very sour.,wow, damn impressive for their first sour. I need to get more. medium body and carbonation.

Mouthfeel is nice and spritzy. Light body with sour,dry finish. Carbonation cleanses out the palate maybe a bit too much.

Overall, a wonderful first bottled entry into the sour market by FW. As others have stated, Sour Opal by itself is better. Hopefully we will see a bottling of Sour Opal in the future. That aside, Feral One looks gorgeous, smells awesome, tastes almost as good, and goes down the pipe pretty quickly for a sour. (1,193 characters)

375ml bottle from batch 001. Thanks for bringing this one over Dustin. Cheers man! Poured into a Three Floyds teku glass today, 3/22/2014.

App- Hazy straw orange body, one finger white head with great retention. Not much lacing as it goes down.

Smell- Very young sour. Basically 99% lactic yogurt nose, with 1% barrel and funk. This would probably benefit from time, but this is strangely still appetizing as far as the nose goes.

Flavour- Still falls a bit of the nose despite a bit more complexity here. Still very strong lactic and yogurt sourness dominates here. No real sign of barrel oak or funk at all. This is a young, very rough around the edges sour ale that has a lot of promise.

Mouthfeel- Medium bodied, creamy with good carbonation. Not very dry, but again, very promising to get a nice dryness over time. Yogurty acidic back-end that still makes this a sipper rather than an all-around refreshing beverage.

Overall- Age this one another 6 months before you drink it. It has a lot of potential to be a nice complex sour, but only time will tell. Right now it's young, rough around the edges and fairly one-note. (1,131 characters)

T: Far less tart than the scent implies. Vinegar, oak, white wine that has been out in the sun for a day, grapes, and saison yeast.

M: Dry but with body.

O: Unique. Having sampled this at the release I wasn't overly impressed, However, it gets better after the first few sips. Shares some similar characteristics with the typical American sour ale but there is also a different kind of sour, a not-wholly-unpleasant rot sour, mixed in. The more I sip this, the more I enjoy it. Feral is an appropriate name. This one certainly is wild. (569 characters)

A very musty, old smell to this. Probably because of the oak barrels used. Orange tint, lacing low, with low carbonation. Smell like I said, musty, old smell. Taste is sour, with the old musty taste. I've had better sours. I liked this one, but is 15 bucks good? Don't think so, had to try it though. Love Firestone. Thankfully I only live about 40 minutes away. (362 characters)

On tap for the Feral One release party at Firestone Walker Barrelworks in Buellton, CA.

Pours a hazy orange with a foamy beige head that settles to a partial film on top of the beer. Small streaks of lace form around the glass on the drink down. Smell is sour with malt, grain, funk, and acidic aromas. Taste is much the same with sour malt, fruit, and acidic flavors on the finish. There is a mild amount of acidity on the palate with each sip. This beer has a good level of carbonation with a crisp mouthfeel. Overall, this is a very good beer with an awesome mix of sour aromas and flavors coming from this blend of beers. (626 characters)

Poured into a tulip glass, the beer is a clear golden, several shades darker than a typical pilsener. A one-finger white head forms then settles into a thick skin providing little sheeting or lacing but persisting for quite a while.

Aroma is slightly musty, with a dash of sharp citrus. Some wood notes as well. Strong but not overpowering.

Flavor is assertive and sharp; mildly tart note comes on immediately, followed by mellow citric acid (I'm thinking lime, but hard for me to pin down). A touch of wood near the end. Low bitterness. Slightly sweet and a little dry. Not as nuanced or sophisticated as some wild ales, but there's nothing wrong with this flavor at all.

Mouthfeel is almost spritzy with a moderately high level of carbonation. Slightly dry (think Duvel) and medium-bodied. A note on the body - thinner or thicker would have been wrong. This is just right.

This beer does what it does correctly: funkier nose than flavor, tart without going overboard, proper body and a slightly dry mouthful to help finish each sip cleanly and definitively. Well done, though not earthshaking.

I tasted the base beers that were used in this blend separately at Barrelworks and I don't think I'm alone in saying that FW would do well to just release Sour Opal on its own. I preferred that to this. (1,352 characters)